Property:Accountability

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	QA	Accountability	Version:	0.2
	Document type:	Quality Attribute	Owner:	J.A.H. Schoonderbeek

A solution’s accountability (expressed as a string of two letters) determines how easy it will be to measure and charge usage costs. Defining units, such as Products, Building Blocks and Elements, and their related costs (procurement, operating and removal costs) enables a more advanced accountability of a facility. It depends on the accounting model and methodology how accountability features of a unit will be used. Specifying and applying accountability features for Products, Building Blocks and Elements will facilitate implementation of an accounting process, without defining what accounting process is to be used.

Basically, there are four distinct approaches regarding a facility's accountability features:

• Measured Pricing (MP) - Applying Measured Pricing, the actual usage of a facility is metered, and usage costs are determined by multiplying the used measure of the facility with the set cost of one measure of the facility (e.g. data usage on a data line, in € per downloaded GB in a certain month);
• Piecewise Pricing (PP) - Applying Piecewise Pricing, the actual usage of a facility is counted, and usage costs are determined by multiplying the number of units with the set cost of one unit (e.g. flat-fee datalines, in € per dataline per month);
• Shared Pricing (SP) - Applying Shared Pricing means that a facility is that users share an (equal) part of the cost of a facility of a set of facilities. Users are accounted for the fact that they use this facility, independent of the amount of use (either in measured use or pieced use). Users that do not utilize a facility, are not charged.
• No Pricing (NP) - When No Pricing is applied, the usage of a facility is "free" from the perspective of the user.
• Not Specified (NS)

Furthermore, a distinction might be made between having the facility's user reserve (expected) usage beforehand, versus metering/counting (realized) usage afterward.